Terminal Terminal

I was watching the news the other day, yesterday, and there was a bit on the CIA and its use of torture. This is not new. They and others have always had the "men in darkk suits who do the work we don't want to know about". what has this to do with Merhan Nasseri, the real "terminal man" well it seemed as though the CIA have helped in creating torture and death squads all over the world. In the case of Merhan, the CIA helped create SAVAK the secret police, which helped to crush all opponents of the shah, and according to Sir Alfred Merhan's book "The Terminal Man" Torture and interrogation methods in SAVAK prisons include but are not limited to; electric shocks,whippings beatings,inserting broken glass into a persons body, the forced extraction of teeth, the forced extraction of fingernails, the forced extraction of toenails,tying weights to the testicles, and pouring boiling water into the rectum."

I am writing about his life WILL BE performing his days in the airport.

"Terminal Terminal"

Just a big heads up, to let you all know that Bryan James will be performing his wonderful funny ,insightful one person play"TERMINAL TERMINAL" in Montreal, it will be Directed By the wonderful Deborah Forde.

the production will take place at the MAI( Montreal Arts interculturels)
3630, rue Jeanne Mance. November 26,27,28. 2009

i will be posting all the latest on the project and all the wonderful rehearsal moments.

long time, no write.

Sorry i really mean it. I have been;(a) very busy, (b) very lazy,(c) apathetic, (d) a mixture of all the afore mentioned.

Yeah, thats it. i have been running around like a running thing. I was working on a production in Montreal "someone Between" Absolutely fantabulous, loved it! not only because I was allowed to participate on the production (thank you Milena Buziak,fab director,smart like firecracker, funnier than Stephen Harper at a rave, and the wonderful, talented-to be sure lovely writer performer Chantria Tram, for allowing me to sit and watch you create, awe inspiring.) at the same time I was doing the teaching begining acting thing. Which I very much love doing. So sorry all you who have been waiting and getting bored wondering if I fell off the face of the earth.

To be fair though,i was getting kinda miffed a bit,trying to find something interesting to write about, without being rude or snide-like. but its freaking hard to write about black canadian artist ,when we seem to be in such small numbers, or are we? can i hear from some o you out there? hell no!

ohhh, okay, its art, right?

I Just got through watching a show here in Montreal, "Le bruit des os qui craquent"... It is about child soldiers. First off i want to say my french sucks, so I can't say that I understood most of what was said. Heres the sticking point for me, and I'm willing to listen(and i did) to reasons for the theatre companies choices. In the advertising they talk of child soldiers in the congo, there are pictures in the front of the theatre, of children,African children, sad looking,with rifles,combat gear etc. So when the lights go down and the stage lights go up,,, why are there no african faces on the stage? yeah! I'm sitting there and the two actors playing the child soldiers are white, I'm sitting there thinking, interesting choices, (as i said, my French sucks.) The actors are wearing that camoflage makeup, so i can't really tell, but as it goes on, yep! So what's the deal? The writer took the words from a girl who was a child soldier, the work is good, but am I finicky about not seeing black faces on the stage ,when the text and theme is about black children, it reminds me of kevjumba In his "Asians just aren't cool". I asked others who saw the production about the choices and I heard; (a)They wanted to give a universal theme to the play;(b) They wanted to get away from the idea of child soldiers being only African As in this could be any child anywhere, So why then use the images of African children in the selling of the show. Why use African child soldier stories?
I have ruled out, the lack of French speaking Black actors. maybe Kevjumba is right (i'll paraphrase) "Black just aren't cool."

JUST A THOUGHT

I recently zipped through the net looking for thinks black and beautiful in the theatre and arts scene. Surprisingly there's not a ton of stuff out there. What does this mean? I think its a clear indication that we, and I mean all peoples of colour must write ourselves into the digital world. I was inspired by the blog uppitybrownwomen(I've added the link,) its systemic. Brian fawcett alluded to this in his book the disappearance of the world. The global village we keep hear about is making the world smaller ,but also whiter. oooppps! there,I said it. Even though we have instant communications, there is the idea that those who own the means of communication productions own the story. or, as M and M says "the medium is the message." Simply, if the people who have the access to the technology are the same as the ones who own the old technology(newspapers,books,economy.)the theme will remain the same.

The Disappearance of the World
Oral cultures took a back seat with the technological invention of writing. Writing made ideas permanent. unchanging. did not rely on memory. the printing press disseminated information. making one set of stories prevalent, while oral histories remained local. imperialism,capitalism spread its ideas through not only with force ,but his- stories lets move to the electric age. radio,television, NEWS,MOVIES,NOVELS,all spreading one story.
the global village makes the world smaller, because there is less diversity.

The WWW.

That being said, We have to write,post, print pictures, tell stories. make ourselves known, make the slight or large differences apparent. or we face disappearing, becoming an insignificant speck on the world wide web,
TRY THIS; Take a walk down your street, look at the amount of diversity you see, turn on your t.v (try CBC)is that diversity there? look at a newspaper?

Post. Write. Demand !

Edwige Jean-Pierre, Theatre Practitioner

I really like the term thetre Practitioner, I first heard it from Djanet Sears, it signifies more than an actor, director or writer, but a person who practices the art and craft. an on going practice of the theatrical art.

one such practitioner is Edwige  Jean Pierre.

 Edwige ; I guess I got bitten by the acting bug at a very young age.  Same scenarios as many... I remember putting on shows for my parents and their friends. My mom took me to go see live theatre at the NAC and Le theatre de l'ile in Gatineau and I knew that that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  The writing happened when I was in theatre school.  We had playwrighting classes and found myself really enjoying the art of storytelling. I then found myself writing monologues and plays. Who would of thought? It never crossed my mind growing up.

2) I don't have a general theme per say when I write.  But I do tend to write about issues that people can relate to, regardless of their gender, race, religion, class ect. I like to write things that can perhaps make us think as people, as a society.  Does that make sense?

3)I've met so many wonderful artists.  I've had the honour and privilege of presenting a piece during the AfriCanadian Playwrights' Festival in August 2006.  I worked along side Djanet Sears, who I respect very much as writer, artist and woman.  ahdri zhina mandiela,, d'bi.young, Marcia Johnson, Joseph Jomo Pierre, Rebecca Fisseha, Diane Bridge, Djennie Laguerre, Lorena Gale to name a few.  Each have their own style and it's just refreshing.  Studying theatre out west, we never studied any Canadian plays written by African-Canadian playwrights - it's a shame because they don't know what they're missing.

WHO'S KILLING THE DREAM?

Spike Lee gave a talk in Montreal at Concordia University in Feburary. At one point he told the crowd that they should follow their dreams,and beware of those that try to crush them, unfortunately, said Lee "parents kill more dreams than anybody," The dream he was talking about was being an Artist, a culture maker. Most of us can remember our parents telling us to stay in school and get an education, which meant, get a degree in business or sciences, something that guarentes, a good salary." Art! boy ya mus' be mad, you want to what?" but things are changing, i know that when i was a kid if I said I wanted to be a professional athlete my parents would have howled( not because of my two left feet,) but who made money as an athlete. these days parents consider sports a fantastic option. music too. but visual arts, theatre,, no ,no ,no! Believe me i know my son wanted to be a d.j. I tried everything, me! mister Arts, I can't believe i was telling him how hard his life would be,and to consider a more stable gig. Thank god his mother was wiser. she bought him turntables(yeah imagine the tension between us when that happened.) but now So parents if you want to make the community strong, support the Artist in your children.

think about it maybe the next black History month we can get a canadian artist to speak, instead of bringing someone up from the states.